Hampton Court. By William Holden Hutton. Illustrated by Herbert Railton.
(John C. Nimmo.)—Mr. Hutton's research and literary skill, assisted by the graceful and effective pencil of Mr. Railton, has done justice to Hampton Court. The palace is not fax from completing four hundred years, for Wolsey began it in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. It has been largely added to, especially by William III., who was happily prevented by the unquiet of Europe and his own shortened days from des- troying the whole of the old building. Mr. Hutton strangely complains that he cannot discover the name of Wolsey's archi- tect. He should study Mr. Jackson's history of Wadham College, and so learn that nearly a century later a noble building might rise without the intervention of an architect. Wadham was built by a working mason, who received about one pound a week. The age of professional architects was only just beginning. Von Wedel, a Pomeranian noble, described Hampton Court in 1584. Fourteen years after another German teacher gave an account of it (Mr. Hutton has 1698 for 1598). In the following reign it was the scene of the famous conference. Charles I. was often there in his earlier days, and enriched it with the famous tapestries. The second Charles also frequented it, chiefly, it would seem, for the sake of the tennis-court which still exists, one of the fewancient courts that this country possesses. But it is with William III. that Hampton Court is specially connected. This fact seems to move Mr. Hutton to wrath, who delivers an attack, wholly irrelevant, it seems to us, on William's morals and religion. This is the only serious blemish in an excellent book.
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